Creating a Cardboard QR code

I recently ordered Baofeng Small Mojing virtual reality headset from AliExpress. They start at $12, with free shipping, and come in a variety of colors.

I got the pink ones.

Baofeng Small Mojing in pink and purple.

Unfortunately, they did not come with a Google Cardboard QR code. This is a symbol that you use to calibrate your headset, so that Google Cardboard virtual reality apps and YouTube movies show up as best as possible.

Google, unfortunately, was not my friend — apparently, this particular QR code had not yet been uploaded by anyone.

But I’m not someone who’s just willing to sit around and wait for other people to do the work. Especially when I can get a blog post out of it. And there’s a QR Code Generator that Google has created for folks to use. Of course, this generator is designed to be used by the manufacturers themselves, but it turned out that it wasn’t too difficult for a mere human to do it, either.

Getting started with the Viewer Profile Generator.

I loaded up the official website on my computer, then picked up my smartphone — a Samsung Galaxy S6, pulled up a QR code reader app, and scanned the QR code. Or you could also type in the URL provided. It opened up a tool on my smartphone that is synched with the form on my computer screen.

The phone loaded the tool and asked me for the “pixels per inch” value of my device. I Googled “samsung galaxy s6 pixels per inch” and got 577. Easy enough. It asked me to touch the screen to switch to full-screen view, then I got a bunch of lines on the screen.

Viewer calibration screen.

Now, back to the website on my computer.

I skipped the part about adding my company name and device name, since I’m not the actual manufacturer — and I still have hopes that the manufacturer themselves will come through and create an official code.

So, first, it asked me for the primary button type. This headset doesn’t have any buttons — but it does allow me to touch the screen. That’s probably as good as having a touch-style button on the headset itself, so I selected “touch.”

Then it asked me for the screen-to-lens distance. I’m supposed to use calipers to measure this.

Measuring the distance between the viewer’s lenses and the smartphone screen. (Image courtesy Google.)

I don’t own a pair of calipers, but I do have measuring tape.

I got 55 millimeters.

Then they had me measure the distance from the center of one lens to the center of the other. That came out to 65 millimeters. My lenses were adjustable, so, per their instructions, I set them at the middle setting for this measurement.

Then they asked me how the phone is aligned. Some headsets — like the FireFly — have the phone positioned so that it’s centered in all directions. As you can see with this particular set, however, the phone is just dropped in and sits at the bottom of the two clips. So I chose “bottom” for the vertical alignment.

Then they had me measure the distance from the bottom of the tray — in my case, the bottom of those clips — to the center of the lenses. That came out to 40 millimeters in this particular case.

Now comes the tricky part — the distortion coefficients. This is what adjusts for the curvature of the lenses.

Here is where the magic happens. Since the online form is synched to the tool running on the smartphone, you can adjust the coefficients — using the little up and down arrows — and see the immediate effect on the phone.

I adjusted the k1 value up and down and a value of 0.15 seemed to work the best. Then I did the same for k2, and got 0.22.

That was it. I clicked the “Generate Profile” button and got my QR code:

Maria Korolov is editor and publisher of Hypergrid Business. She has been a journalist for more than twenty years and has worked for the Chicago Tribune, Reuters, and Computerworld and has reported from over a dozen countries, including Russia and China.

White Bunny

Thanks Maria! This was quite helpful.

gnico

Hi Maria, will one be added soon for the Autonomous Teleport VR Headset? I’m unable to find a QR Code for it anywhere. I received it from Indigogo a few days ago and I feel as though its not calibrated for the apps I have.

A viewer QR code is based on the viewer — how its lenses are configured, mostly. The same QR Code is then used on any smartphone. What headset do you have?

Raul B.

Thanks for the QR, Maria!
I also have a couple of Baofeng Small Mojing, but black and purple instead of pink. I’ve tried your QR on them, but it doesn’t work as expected (maybe mine are from a different batch).
I’ve generated QRs adapted to my headsets for two positions of the lenses: “centered” position (62mm) and “near” position (57mm). Maybe you want to add them to your QR collection as alternative QRs for this headset…

Double vision can also be caused by the smartphone not being perfectly centered in the viewer. One thing you can try is moving the smartphone to the right or left a little bit, while looking through the viewer, and seeing if that helps the double vision issue.

Another reason is that your eyes could be farther apart or closer together than the headset makers planned for. on the FiiT, you should be able to move the lenses closer or farther apart — does that help?

Another possibility is that there’s something about the combination of you, your smartphone, the viewer, and the QR Code that just doesn’t work. Can you try the headset using someone else’s smartphone? Can you have someone else try the viewer? And do all the FiiT QR codes cause the same double-vision effect for you?

Could you do a qr code for the Allie VR cardboard if you have it if you don’t I can gladly just purchase a standard Google one

Thanks!

Edward Winslow

Please help! I can’t even find a website for mine. I have the Neutab Virtual Reality headset bought off of amazon. Not sure it it came from amazon or a amazon seller! Tried your method and i just cant figure out how to measure well all of it. my lenses move in and out. how do i measure that and the distance from phone to lenses? my goggles have a slide in tray. also with my phone the Lg G4 I can not enter into full screen mode!

I’m not very tech savvy but I don’t understand what to do with these QR codes… I have a Samsung S7 and a Gear VR… I used it already without any kind of QR code. Also, I may be getting a Fiit VR 2S to use with non-Oculus VR Apps. How do you use the QR code and how will it affect how the phone works with the Gear VR? Can I go back and forth or do I need to do something with the QR code each time I change headsets? Thanks in advance…

The Gear VR is a separate thing, and talks to the phone via a wired connection. It is totally completely separate from the Google Cardboard ecosystem — uses different apps, different standards, different app store, different sensors, everything.